Whoopie Pies!

So. One day last week, my coworker Nicolette sent me an email. Subject: mmmm. Content of the email: this recipe.

And then, my boss is leaving. She’s always talking about my food, teasing me to bring some of my leftovers for her lunch. Since she’s leaving soon, I decided to really cook for her, and my whole office. I made this for lunch, but I didn’t take any pictures, because, hello, I was making lunch for 10 people and roasting 3 turkey breasts and 2 pans of vegetables and doing dishes and trying to stop my dogs from sticking their whole heads in the oven (not smart, doggies) and trying to air out my house because there’s something in the bottom of my oven that burns and smokes my whole house the minute I turn the oven on and I know I should clean it, but do you know how big of a pain it is to clean an oven, and why isn’t my oven self-cleaning anyway. Harrumph.

So no pictures of turkey for you. You’ll just have to make it yourself. And you should! It’s awesome.

And of course, I have to make a dessert. I was going to make a cake, but then I decided to make these whoopie pies instead.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, or in a large bowl using an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, until fully incorporated. Beat in the vanilla.

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt.

Beat in the dry ingredients, a spoonful at a time, until incorporated to form the cookie dough. Scrape the bowl partway through to make sure the ingredients are fully mixed. Cover and refrigerate the dough until chilled.

Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Scoop the dough into tablespoon-sized pieces, and place on parchment-lined baking sheets. Flatten each cookie slightly, and bake each sheet until the cookies are set, 10 to 12 minutes.

Remove and cool before filling. This makes about 5 dozen individual cookies.

Filling and assembly

1 1/4 cups (21/2 sticks) butter

6 cups powdered sugar

2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 tablespoon plus ¾ teaspoon water

1 1/4 teaspoon salt

Cooled cookies

In the bowl of a stand mixer, or in a medium bowl using an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla, water and salt. Scoop 1 generous tablespoon of filling onto one cookie, then top with a second, pressing together until the filling comes to the edge. Repeat to make 2 ½ dozen sandwich cookies. You might have a little frosting left over after filling the sandwiches; any extra frosting will keep for 1 week, covered and refrigerated.

And now, an extreme frosting close-up!

Ahhhh! So much frosting!

I almost copied the nutritional info, but you don’t need to know about that. If you do, go look at the recipe. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I had a bit of frosting left over, and I used an extremely generous amount of frosting on each sandwich. Use that extra frosting however you like.

Ok, these whoopie pies. OMFG. They are spectacular. And spectacularly rich. They have, no lies, 5 sticks of butter and 8 cups of sugar. They are cookies, but you could also call them diabetes.

My cookies didn’t turn out as uniform and pretty as the ones in the recipe, but WHATEVER. I don’t cook to make pretty things, I cook to make DELICIOUS things, things with BUTTER and SUGAR and maybe a little SALT because the salt really makes these cookies fantastic, guys. It’s just a bit, but it gives you a nice flavor to cut through all that sweetness. What was I saying? Oh yeah, I was using my ALL CAPS to shout the virtues of FATS. Because butter is LOVE, people.

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BUT. They are amazing. And not very hard. The hardest thing is not gorging yourself on them like a small child and then running round on an insane sugar high. Seriously, they are so rich and sugary, one will last you all day.

Also, this recipe taught me a valuable lesson – all you have to do to get me to cook for you is send me an email. Apparently, I take it as a challenge. Challenge accepted, Internet!

Oh my! Can’t believe you made whoopie pies for all who attended the Business/Media/Public Relations meeting today. Definitely was the best part of the meal, and I really enjoyed your exuberant talk about your food-blogging experiences. Thanks for sharing.